Democratic members of Congress and Republican officials who have warned against Vladimir Putin’s autocratic regime blasted Donald Trump and JD Vance for publicly lashing out at Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in a volatile Oval Office meeting over the embattled nation’s security from Russia’s ongoing war.
They labeled the president’s behavior “shameful,” “disgusting,” an “embarrassment,” and a crude opening for Putin to continue to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine.
Trump even at one point expressed solidarity with Putin, noting that they were both targets of investigations into the president’s 2016 campaign. Putin “respects” him, Trump said, because they “went through a hell of a lot” together.
The president’s Republican allies, meanwhile, framed the meeting as Trump’s “America first” agenda at work.
“Let’s cut to the chase: The president of the United States is a coward who is Vladimir Putin’s puppet,” Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine Corps officer, told CNN. “And the vice president of the United States is a pogue and a coward who is Donald Trump’s puppet.”
The hourlong meeting, which devolved into the president railing against Zelensky for 10 minutes, showed “two cowardly puppets and a hero,” Moulton said.
“Whether you voted for these puppets or not, just as an American, as a fellow American, it’s just embarrassing that the only hero in the Oval Office, the only decent human being, for that matter, is the Ukrainian,” Moulton said. “I mean, this administration is going to go down as an embarrassment in American history.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that Zelensky was “taking advantage” of the United States. “The death and destruction of the Russian-provoked war needs to stop immediately, and only our American President can put these two countries on a path to lasting peace,” he said. “President Zelenskyy needed to acknowledge that, and accept the extraordinary mineral rights partnership proposal that President Trump put on the table. What we witnessed in the Oval Office today was an American President putting America first.”
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who served as House impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment over threats to withhold military aid to Zelensky, said of Ukraine’s president: “The guy has balls.”
“He went into the Oval Office and stood up to Russia’s best negotiators,” he added.
“A sickening, appalling, dark day in American history,” said Democratic congresswoman Yassamin Ansari. “Trump and Vance are fundamentally transforming the United States in the most horrific ways — now clearly a fascist, authoritarian oligarchy that abandons our longstanding allies in support of the world’s worst dictators.”
Democratic Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, said he watched “the supposed leader of the free world throw a temper tantrum in the Oval Office.”
Trump’s behavior “is just the latest in a string of alarming gestures” towards Putin in “a dangerous pattern of deference to a dictator who seeks to undermine democracy worldwide,” Meeks said.
“He is both a petulant child that demands displays of loyalty in court, and a tyrant with sympathies for autocrats and dictators, so long as they stroke his ego or enrich him and his family,” he said. “It is not President Zelensky who disrespected the United States in the Oval Office. It was Donald Trump — behaving exactly like the two-bit mob boss we’ve known him to be.”
Democratic Senator Jack Reed, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the meeting a “political ambush and a shameful failure of American leadership.”
“President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine are fighting for their very lives and existence,” he said. “Unlike Donald Trump or JD Vance, I have traveled to Ukraine and seen firsthand the death and destruction wrought by Vladimir Putin against innocent people. To mock Ukraine and our allies is a travesty that only benefits Putin.”
The “cruel and callous display” communicates that the “United States is not to be trusted,” he said.
Reed also called on congressional Republicans to speak up.
“Where is your voice?” he said. “We are watching America’s leaders surrender to Russia, forfeit our leadership in the world, and do strategic harm to our country — and for what? This is not who we are, and silence is complicity.”
“A reminder: Putin’s rivals always end up murdered,” wrote Republican Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska. “Putin despises the West and our values. We should have 100 [percent] moral clarity who this murdering dictator really is.”
He called the meeting “a bad day for America’s foreign policy.”
Republican congressman Mike Lawler called the meeting a “missed opportunity for both the United States and Ukraine — an agreement that would undoubtedly result in stronger economic and security cooperation.”
“Sadly, the only winner of today is Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Former Republican congressman and Ohio governor John Kasich said, “Zelensky represents a nation whose citizens have sacrificed their lives and shed blood for the freedoms they cherish.”
“He deserves respect, not humiliation,” he added.
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who led a bipartisan congressional delegation with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham at the Munich security conference, called Trump and Vance “ventriloquist dummies for Putin.”
Hours after saying he was “honored” to watch Trump and Zelensky sign a minerals deal, Graham suggested he believed the relationship between the United States and Ukraine was irreparable, blaming Zelensky for speaking out inside the Oval Office.
“Whether or not we can put this back together, I don’t know,” he said. “If I were him I would profusely apologize … and show a little bit of gratitude.”
He told reporters at the White House that Zelensky “either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was the first member of GOP leadership to respond to Friday’s meeting.
“President Trump is fighting for PEACE around the world and is putting America First as our best negotiator — he’s the only one to get Russia to the table to consider a serious and lasting peace agreement with Ukraine,” he wrote.
George W. Bush’s former adviser Karl Rove, who advised Trump’s 2020 campaign, told Fox News: “This is why diplomacy should never be conducted in public.”
“It is going to be incredibly hard to walk back the animosity we saw in that room today,” he added. “But the only winner out of today is Vladimir Putin. This was a mistake to have it broadcast, it was a mistake for Zelensky to get his dander up, and it was a mistake for the president and vice president to be so public in their comments.”
Republican Rep. Keith Self, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs committee, told Fox News that he was “delighted” by the meeting and said the nation’s “European allies need to take note of what happened.”
The White House shared dozens of posts from administration officials and allies who vociferously supported the president’s actions.
“America is the greatest country in the world – no one gets to lecture our President in the Oval Office and disrespect America’s generosity,” Senator Rick Scott said. “President Trump is making it clear the international community must do their fair share instead of solely relying on American taxpayers to foot the bill. President Trump is ushering in a new America-first era with a restoration of peace through strength.
Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said “putting Zelensky in his place while he disrespects the U.S. in the Oval Office is exactly what American leadership should look like.”
Her boyfriend, Real America’s Voice personality Brian Glenn, was among a handful of reporters inside the Oval Office after the White House blocked the Associated Press and took control of press access. He asked Zelensky why he doesn’t wear a suit.
“I will wear a costume after this war will finish,” Zelensky said. “Maybe something like yours, yes? Maybe something better.”
